Friday, July 14, 2006

Nabucco Opens the Gates of Vienna

Nabucco Opens the Gates of Vienna.

That’s the actual title of an article in the July 12th edition of Turkish Daily News.

“What,” you may ask, “is ‘Nabucco’?”

Nabucco is the title of an opera by Giuseppe Verdi. It’s the Italian version of the name of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar.

Nabucco pipelineNabucco is also the name chosen for a natural gas pipeline planned to run from the Caspian Sea to Western Europe. The disagreement between Ukraine and Russia over their natural gas pipeline earlier this year drove up the price of natural gas and forced Europe to consider alternative energy supply routes. The Nabucco project was the result.

Here’s a summary from a few weeks ago in Pravda:

Energy ministers from Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria signed an agreement to build the Nabucco gas pipeline at a meeting in the Austrian capital Monday, Austrian media reported.

[…]

Construction of the pipeline is scheduled to begin in 2008, with the first gas expected to start flowing in 2011, the Austria Press Agency reported. Construction is expected to cost between Ђ4.6 billion (US$5.8 billion) and Ђ5 billion (US$6.3 billion), according to APA.

Below is a map of the proposed route:

Projected route of the Nabucco pipeline

As you can see, the Turks are hoping that natural gas will make up for the failure of their Janissaries to breach the Gates of Vienna.

The Turkish Daily News has this commentary:

The negotiations Turkey is conducting with the European Union to become a full member of the bloc will still be taking place by the time the pipeline is operational in 2011, as planned. Experts indicate that the Nabucco project, so highly valued by the EU, will at that time be even more loaded with meaning and will become a key factor in the membership negotiations with Turkey.

So, obviously, Turkey is looking to use the Nabucco pipeline as extortion leverage in negotiations with the EU.

But that’s five years from now. Look what’s happened in the last five years — how will the entrance of Turkey into the EU be regarded by the average German or Swede in 2011? How about the Danes, the Dutch, and the Belgians? How many more infidels will have been slaughtered in the streets of European cities by then? How many more Crusader “whores” will have been raped by Muslims? How many more no-go zones will there be for police in Rotterdam or Malmö?

I’m not sure even the promise of cheap natural gas will be enough to induce Europe to accept a potentially huge influx of Muslim migrants coming in through a newly unguarded Turkish border.

And look at the route of the pipeline. Do you think it will be safer than the one through Russia and Ukraine? It would be a tempting target for the mujahideen whenever EU policies displease them. Just imagine the possible protection rackets.

The northern route is vulnerable only to the whims of Vladimir Putin and his successors. But if an Islamist party were to be elected in Turkey…

After Nabucco, Europe’s attitude towards Israel can be expected to become even less friendly, if that is possible.

I don’t think the choice of name for the pipeline is an accident. Verdi’s Nabucco, after all, follows the tribulations of the Jews after they are attacked and subsequently exiled from their homeland by King Nebuchadnezzar.

For once, Muslims look with favor upon a tyrant from the jahiliyah.


Hat tip: Thanos.

6 comments:

X said...

Yet again the problem we face is that, no matter how much the peoples of Europe might protest and want otehrwise, the cabal of those ruling over us will push through Turkey's entry for their own purposes. It's hard to guess what they want anymore, except to bring about "ever closer union"; and, apparently, ever-expanding union too... the EU is a mirror of so many things. Mirroring Islam's expansionism is par for the course.

Of course it might be starting to fall apart by then. We'll have to see.

Jude the Obscure said...

The odd thing is that with a solely European population, Nabucco would not be necessary. UK and Norway produce gas and oil & UK has nuclear energy. However, with a hugely burgeouning immigrant population, extra energy demands are forever being made. It seems to me that Nabucco will simply eventually provide gas for millions of Turks in Europe. Who is paying for the construction of Nabucco?

Starling said...

Baron, thanks as always for such fine analysis. The following appears at the end of a post I completed today entitled "Stepping on the Gas" about another country that is using oil as an economic and political weapon- Russia:

"See also: Baron Bodissey of "The Gates of Vienna" has an excellent post on a planned pipeline from Iran, through Turkey and into the heart of the EU. He wonders whether- no, he actually predicts that- Turkey will use the pipeline as leverage in it's negotiations to join the EU. What the Gates post and this one have in common is oil's large and increasing role in geopolitics. It also underscores that oil or access to it is, in effect, a get out of "jail free card"; it means never having to say you are sorry; it means being to advocate genocide or not, as in the case of Turkey, not having to apologize for it."

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

The pipeline is more or less a direct result of Russiam behaviour during last winter - playing poitics and shutting the gas off during a once-in-a-decade freeze.

Aside - personally I would *not* use Pravda online as a source. Its a yellow tabloid. Look at the stories on their and cringe.

Baron Bodissey said...

Peacekeeper -- I would of course never use Pravda as a primary source for anything. But here they are reporting the same thing everyone else was, the bare facts of the pipeline deal. So it was confirmed by other sources, and it's fun to use exotic (for me, anyway) links.

That said, if Pravda told me that it rained yesterday in Moscow, I'd want to check with Moscow News and the BBC before I assumed it was true.

X said...

These days the BBC would probably reprint Pravda without any editing, except to perhaps insert an anti-american jibe. Cos Bush single-handedly caused global warming don'tcha know...